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The FDA is aiming to approve drugs based on very early data if the medication shows a possible benefit in terms of survival, the head of the agency told lawmakers at a House committee hearing. Speaking before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said the agency…

Starting this year, many PBMs rolled out a new type of cost-share program that will not count copay assistance dollars toward a patient’s deductible and out-of-pocket maximum. This might put some patients in a bind. Patients face big, unaffordable drug bills when the assistance maximum is reached, but before they have met their deductibles. Adherence to the specialty drug could fall off sharply if patients hit the copay program limit and cannot afford therapy.

When it comes to heart attacks, additional health care spending was only weakly associated with lower case-fatality rates, according to a study of Medicare patients. What did make a difference to researchers was coronary angioplasty on the first day of heart attack patients’ hospitalizations.

Sarah Kliff at Vox had the best tweet about this morning’s announcement that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase were forming a new health care company. “Alexa, what is this new Amazon health care company?" https://t.co/oAAI0R4JQH — Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff) January 30, 2018 The lack…

The overall infant mortality rate in the U.S. declined 14% between 2005 and 2015, from 6.86 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2005 to 5.90 in 2015, according to the CDC. However, CDC researchers found wide variation among the states, ranging from 9.08 deaths per 1,000 live births in Mississippi (the highest rate), to 4.28 deaths per 1,000 live births in Massachusetts (the lowest).

This professor of pharmaceutical economics in the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy says that the rising level of health care spending is unsustainable. He argues that drug price increases should be reviewed and PBMs should be regulated. “We need [a] bona fide rate regulation review body that can meaningfully evaluate the information presented by drug companies.”

Women who were new patients waited an average of nearly 24 days to be seen by an ob/gyn, according to research by Athenahealth. In contrast, the new-patient wait to see for an orthopedist was 13 days. Waits for first appointments with primary care physicians, pediatricians, and cardiologists fell in between those two extremes.

Medicare’s new bundled payments program is expected to be popular, despite unanswered questions about the target prices for the episodes, risk adjustment, and use of quality data. Here’s what we know—and don’t know.

Blame for the epidemic has focused on drugmakers, drug wholesalers, and physicians who prescribed opioids too liberally. This fall, fingers pointed at health insurers. Investigative reporting showed that coverage policies that restricted access to less addictive medications might have helped fueled the epidemic.

Women are a key focus segment for health care organizations both because of the medical services they utilize as individuals and the influence they have on the health care of others. In one survey, 59% of women and 94% of working moms reported making or heavily influencing health care decisions for their entire families.